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Review: Taiga – Cosmos

Russian black metallers Taiga’s newest record ‘Cosmos’ is another piece of the cryptic and bleak Russian black metal puzzle. Russia is a country that constantly cranks out bands of a high quality in various genres, but never seems to get the credit it deserves. ‘Cosmos’ is out now of Symbol of Domination Productions.

This is bleak, depressive black metal at it’s best,with ghostly keyboards accompanying the fiery riffing and the gloomy atmospheres. It often switches between a slower pace where the almost suicidal atmosphere is suffocating to the blasting, white hot setpieces that howl and shriek at the stars above. This dichotomy is what makes Taiga interesting to me; coupling not only the firebrand speed and rage of pure black metal but the weeping, shrieking loneliness of atmospheric black as well. Tracks like ‘Космос’ have an almost uplifting quality to them, when soaring melody drags the misery into the bright lights of day.

There’s definitely plenty of heart wrenching melancholy floating through this record, but Taiga’s grasp on the cold, desperation of life is masterful. ‘Cosmos’ builds itself within a cocoon of solitude, of darkness and of misery. Piercing through with sobbing screams, you still cannot fathom the depths of despair lurking here. Turn it on, turn it up and drift away forever…